


wilderness months

by llassah



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: picfor1000, M/M, POV Derek Hale, Road Trip, Russian Roulette, Slow Build, Suicide Attempt, post season 3B
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stiles makes Derek promise to kill him, if it is necessary, his eyes bright, almost amber in the harsh sunlight. Sitting on a park bench, eating ice cream, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to ask. Commonplace. He says yes, of course, and means it.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Stiles and Derek, during and after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wilderness months

**Author's Note:**

> Written for picfor1000 [for this picture prompt](http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoedge/196062183/)

Stiles ends up fighting against himself, following his own clues and false trails, leading himself further and further down a path that no one else could take. And they watch, and hope, and wait for the fights they can take part in, for the bodies to start showing up. They do.

Stiles makes Derek promise to kill him, if it is necessary, his eyes bright, almost amber in the harsh sunlight. Sitting on a park bench, eating ice cream, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to ask. Commonplace. He says yes, of course, and means it.

 

* * *

 

Two months in a hired car, just driving. There’s no particular aim in mind. They take it in turns to drive, eat up the miles. Derek loses himself in the flex of Stiles’s foot on the clutch, the gas, his easy movements as he changes gear. The car radio hums gently, too low to hear. They sleep outside, or in nondescript motels with suspect sheets and bibles in the drawers. They drive, and they drive, and Derek doesn’t really care enough to ask where they’re aiming to go. All he cares about is the fact that no one’s chasing them.

 

* * *

 

Stiles goes through a phase of tying himself to the bed, at the very beginning. Walks around with bruised wrists, eyes heavy from lack of sleep. Scott keeps asking Derek for advice, asks Deaton, his mom, Stiles’s dad. Lydia. Chris Argent. Just keeps trying to find new angles, because the one person who could solve all this is sat in his room, staring at a wall covered in problems he can’t quite fix, with the acute awareness that he is possibly the biggest problem he has at the moment.

Derek gives Stiles padded cuffs, softer ropes. Grins when Stiles swears.

 

* * *

 

Scott checks in regularly, with both of them. He keeps sending Stiles pictures of weird things he thinks Stiles will like. He makes Isaac put on every scarf and coat he owns then stand in a paddling pool holding an ice cream cone, sends Stiles a picture. That one, Stiles saves as his phone background. They’ve got a shorthand of gestures, half sentences. Know each other’s minds intimately. It’s why they both survived this. The texts Scott sends Derek are partly danger related, partly odd suggestions of tourist traps he thinks Stiles will like. All end with ‘are you okay?’.

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles breaks the cuffs, unties the ropes, wakes up in the woods, lakes, warehouses, the hospital, his feet bloody, clothes torn, hands red. He calls Derek to pick him up, because he doesn’t want Scott to worry. As if Scott won’t be able to tell. He’s enabling him, maybe. He has a drawer full of Stiles’s clothes in his dresser, some of his preferred body wash in the shower. A first aid kit. He watches Stiles put himself back together, and wonders why Stiles thinks he won’t worry. Lets Stiles into his bed, plans what they’ll do when it’s over.

 

* * *

 

They sit in restaurants and watch people. It’s bright outside, everyone in lighter clothes, fabric fluttering behind them, their scent carried on the warm breeze. Summer’s intoxicating for a werewolf. Sunscreen makes him want to sneeze, a little. He can tell Stiles is making up stories about every person who walks by the window. They’re safe in here, surrounded by complacent, oblivious people. Derek watches Stiles try and use his chopsticks, and ignores what the light does to his eyes. He should be used to his long, clever fingers by now, to the shape of his lips. He really isn’t.

 

* * *

 

The first time he sees Stiles’s evidence board against himself, it’s like he’s been punched, blindsided. Stiles is sitting on his bed, cross legged. His dad’s got one hand on his shoulder, thumb stroking in soothing circles. Derek pauses, one leg halfway in through the window, ducks his head. The sheriff just waves him in, sighs. When he sees the photographs, sees Stiles’s alibis and the holes in them, circumstantial evidence and fingerprints, it’s like he’s relearning Stiles. It frightens him. Scares him more when he realizes that Stiles is helping his father build a case against his own son.

 

* * *

 

 

They kiss on a Wednesday, a day’s drive outside Laramie. Nothing out of the ordinary about it. Derek’s got two bottles of water in his hands. Stiles tastes of cinnamon gum. Smells of sweat, and the cheap detergent the Laundromat used. It’s gentle, chaste. “I thought I’d die before I got to do this,” Stiles says, lips red, slick with spit.

“You could have. Before.”

Stiles shrugs. “I was maybe evil before.”

He ducks his head to hide his sudden smile. “It seems to be my type,” he says gravely, loves the bright, surprised laughter he shocks out of him.

  

* * *

 

 

Stiles gets the darkness out of his head by playing Russian roulette. Doesn’t tell anyone what he’s planning. Gets the gun two towns over, goes somewhere quiet with a bottle of whiskey and a single bullet. Wins the battle of wills, because he’s fighting against himself, and he _knows._ Knows exactly what he’s capable of. They get there just in time to see him pull the trigger for the third time. They see him win, crumpled to the floor, blackness pouring out of him like blood. When he comes round, he shoots twice more, smiles grimly. The gun was loaded.

 

* * *

 

 

“Feel like having a few more lost years?” Stiles asks when it’s all over. He’s been worn down to nearly nothing, fingers spindly, knuckles scabbed over. His lips are cracked, skin pale. He’s alive, though. They’re alive.

“Two months.”

Stiles scowls, scoffs a little. “The wilderness months. Shittiest chapter heading in the world’s most disappointing rock autobiography.”

Derek shrugs, leans back against the warm bricks of the warehouse. “Take it or leave it, Stiles,” and he smiles, because he knows the precise expression of disgust that Stiles is wearing. The nemeton didn’t take everything he had. Just most of it.


End file.
